{"id":1437,"date":"2024-06-20T22:07:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T22:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/megan-thee-stallion-savage-copyright-lawsuit-dismissed-by-judge\/"},"modified":"2024-06-20T22:07:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T22:07:02","slug":"megan-thee-stallion-savage-copyright-lawsuit-dismissed-by-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/megan-thee-stallion-savage-copyright-lawsuit-dismissed-by-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Megan Thee Stallion ‘Savage’ Copyright Lawsuit Dismissed by Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA federal judge says Megan Thee Stallion<\/a> didn\u2019t copy her chart-topping \u201cSavage\u201d from an earlier song, ruling there\u2019s no evidence the superstar has ever even heard the little-known instrumental track.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a decision issued Tuesday (June 18), Judge Katherine Polk Failla<\/strong> dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by producer James A. Greene, who claimed that Megan\u2019s mega-hit infringed the copyrights to his own song \u201cIt\u2019s About To Be On.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGreen claimed he had \u201cno doubt\u201d that \u201cSavage\u201d infringed his rights, but Judge Failla ruled that the two songs were clearly different.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiff\u2019s work is an instrumental piece, with little variety in sounds and instruments used throughout,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cBy contrast, \u2018Savage\u2019 is a pop song, featuring lyrics as well as a more upbeat tempo. Plaintiff\u2019s work is qualitatively different from \u2018Savage,\u2019 and any similarities implicate common, non-copyrightable elements of any song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe judge also ruled that the case was flawed for a simpler reason: That it was unlikely Megan and her co-writers had \u201caccess\u201d to his song to copy it \u2014 a key element in any copyright lawsuit. Green had argued that he passed along CDs in the early 2000s to someone who might have later given them to \u201cSavage\u201d producer J. White Did It.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Judge Failla said that wasn\u2019t enough: \u201cPlaintiff is unable to allege any chain of events that creates anything more than the \u2018bare possibility\u2019 that defendants gained access to plaintiff\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe judge also ruled that Green\u2019s song was not popular enough that Megan might have heard it on her own: \u201cAt best, plaintiff alleges that he undertook his own efforts to distribute the work throughout the music industry to A&R\u2019s, management teams, etc.,\u201d Judge Failla wrote. \u201cYet such efforts alone fall short of widespread distribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGreene sued Megan (Megan Pete), J. White (Anthony White) and Warner Music Group last year, claiming \u201cSavage\u201d had borrowed material from his \u201cIt\u2019s About To Be On,\u201d a three-minute instrumental track he says he released in 1999. He claimed that the two songs shared the same drum pattern and piano note pattern as well as similar siren sounds.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Thursday\u2019s ruling, Judge Failla said each of those elements was different in Megan\u2019s song, including the siren sounds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn [Green\u2019s song], the siren sound is an atonal chord that appears to be created using a synthesizer,\u201d the judge said. \u201cBy contrast, in \u2018Savage,\u2019 the alleged siren sound is not a siren at all, but rather is a distorted vocal sample. Put simply, no reasonable listener would discern any similarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNeither side immediately returned a request for comment on Thursday (June 20).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge says Megan Thee Stallion didn\u2019t copy her chart-topping \u201cSavage\u201d from an earlier song, ruling there\u2019s no evidence the superstar has ever even heard the little-known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[429,2059,423,303,455,2058,457,456],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-copyright","tag-dismissed","tag-judge","tag-lawsuit","tag-megan","tag-savage","tag-stallion","tag-thee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}